For anyone who knows anything about MTG

[Patrick Duffy]

What kind of a starting hand are you looking for? How many times will you mulligan before you eventually keep it? How much do your hand standards go down each time you mulligan?

Also, anyone got any fun and solid decklists for me to steal and impress my friends?

[TFlo]

What format do your friends play?

[asofel]

ZeeJustin used to play MTG a lot; in fact, he's known for playing multiple decks at the same time, kinda like chessmasters. I think he was up to 6 when he quit...

[Wes Mantooth]

NH

[sushijerk]

Continous mulliganing will get you pegged as a nit, and you will be treated as such. The only reason to mulligan is if you drew all high cost cards and if you got no land/mana source.

I haven't played since HS. I don't know anything about the editions and cards that are out now.

[Patrick Duffy]

Pretty much all casual. We don't play Unglued or Unhinged or any of that, no antes, and we follow the restricted lists, but other than that... pretty much anything goes. I guess I just listed the rules for Type 1. So Type 1.

[JackWilson]

[ QUOTE ]
What kind of a starting hand are you looking for? How many times will you mulligan before you eventually keep it? How much do your hand standards go down each time you mulligan?

Also, anyone got any fun and solid decklists for me to steal and impress my friends?

[/ QUOTE ]

The starting hand you're looking for depends entirely on your deck.

For example, if you're playing a "beatdown" deck (lots of creatures) you're gonna want a hand with a smooth curve. By smooth curve, I mean (as an example) a creature that costs 1, a creature that costs 2 and a creature that costs 3. What this enables you to do is to cast a creature on every turn (provided you have land, important) but more importantly maximise your mana on every turn. Assuming you built a decent deck, you're getting the most bang for your buck on every turn. Your 3 casting-cost creatures will be better than your 2cc creatures and so forth.

The beatdown deck is a good example because it needs to come out very well if you're gonna stand any chance of winning. It's no good casting your first creature on turn 4. By that time, other beatdown decks will have you under too much pressure and control/combo decks will have more than enough mana to do their thing.

To sum up, basically you're looking for 4 things in your opening hand: (in order of importance)

1. Mana quantity
2. Spell quantity
3. Spell quality
4. Mana quality

No 1 is to make sure you can cast stuff.
No 2 is to make sure you have enough stuff to cast
No 3 is to make sure you have stuff worth casting. Drawing a hand full of Llanowar Elves means you're great on the mana department as well as spell QUANTITY department, but lacking severely in QUALITY.
No 4 is to make sure you can get the right mana reliably. If you're including access to colored mana for all your spells here, this potentially moves up to number 2. Regardless, drawing a hand full of Hickory Woodlots (must be sacrificed after using twice) isn't exactly quality. Nor is drawing 4 comes-into-play-tapped lands with a beatdown deck.

That's a rough guide to get the ideas flowing. Never be afraid to mulligan if you don't like your hand (i.e if it's lacking in one of the four departments) Amateurs usually mulligan far too seldomly.

Important to remember is that your requirements for a starting hand go down as you mulligan. You'd be happy to keep a 5-card hand lacking in only one of the four departments (unless it's mana quantity).

[amplify]

You guys do know that we have computer games now, right?

[JackWilson]

Bah, the game sucked. I have no delusions about that. However, the competition was what really rocked. Proving yourself the best week in and week out. Also, being in a Magic team was awesome, we had so much fun (here's a clue: not with Magic).